House Passes Textile Quota Bill, but Veto Looms : Apparel: The Administration opposes the legislation as a threat to trade-liberalization talks in Geneva.

The House approved legislation Tuesday to protect the U.S. textile industry, but in a victory for the Bush Administration, the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

The bill, passed overwhelmingly in the Senate before the House backed it 271 to 149, would impose stiff quotas on imports of textiles, clothing and shoes, effectively raising the price of such goods to limit job losses in domestic industries.

Ardent supporters of the legislation--mostly from the South, where the bulk of the U.S. textile industry is based--contend that it is needed to keep 2 million mostly low-paid jobs from falling victim to foreign goods.

“A number of these plants are in smaller towns, and when their factories shut down there is no work elsewhere,” said Rep. James Quillen (R-Tenn.). “A philosophical discussion of free trade is all well and good, but it does not pay the rent or put food on the table.”

The White House, which has said that President Bush will veto the bill, opposes the legislation as a threat to the global trade-liberalization talks under way in Geneva. It has warned that, if the bill becomes law, it would usher in a dangerous era of trade wars.

“It would send the wrong message to retreat now from the world economy and build protectionist walls just when the reform governments of Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia need our leadership in forging a more open international economy,” Bush wrote Monday in a letter to House leaders.

Lawmakers opposing the bill argued that textiles and apparel are already among the most sheltered U.S. industries and do not need additional protection.

“These industries are just going through the same ups and downs every other American business experiences,” said Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.). “Moving a plant so it is closer to the interstate (highway) has had far more impact on people in my part of the country than all the foreign competition put together.”

Among those opposing the bill are many U.S. apparel firms that rely on overseas suppliers. For example, Los Angeles-based Carole Little, a women’s sportswear and dress designer, makes about half its merchandise overseas and often buys foreign textiles for the goods it produces domestically.

“We don’t like to see the government interfere in these issues,” said Leonard Rabinowitz, the firm’s chairman. “We don’t think it helps.”

Up until the last moment, the bill’s opponents feared that they would not get the 145 votes needed to sustain a veto. Roughly 15 more Republicans than expected supported the White House after the Administration launched a belated lobbying campaign to limit support.

Congressional strategists say the bill appears doomed for the year.

The fight over textile quotas is a recurring one on Capitol Hill, where two similar bills have been approved in the past five years--only to be vetoed.

This year the battle was more intense because textile forces--joined by shoe manufacturers, sugar and cotton growers, shipbuilders and steelmakers--are fearful that the Bush Administration plans to reduce their long-protected position in the U.S. economy.

To win concessions from poorer countries to help U.S. industries expand abroad, the White House hopes to phase out the worldwide system of quotas that holds back textile and apparel exports from many Third World nations.

Backers of Tuesday’s legislation, although acknowledging their disappointment over the vote, said the strong support for the textile bill should send a signal to the Administration not to sell out the industry’s interests in the Uruguay Round of trade talks scheduled to be completed this December.

“The White House better go very, very easy,” argued Rep. Ed Jenkins (D-Ga.). “If they phase out textile quotas, they’re going to have a hard time getting the implementing legislation out of here.”

Administration officials believe, however, that the textile industry’s third failure in a row to mount enough support to force the bill into law should give the White House added clout with other nations as the trade talks go down to the wire.

“It is crucial to the health of the world trading system that this bill be killed,” said William Cline, an analyst at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“Otherwise,” Cline added--in a reference to a highly protectionist 1930s law that helped make the Great Depression far worse--”it could turn out to be the Smoot-Hawley of the 1990s.”

Times staff writer Stuart Silverstein contributed to this report.